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Culture: Richard Brooks: Biteback

Vicar in sex-book storm: you can see the tabloid headlines. The former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway, has written a novel. Its theme? The church and sex.

Holloway was once known as the Barmy Bish, for questioning the Gospels, and his Platform 11 has three main characters, all of whom have suffered from the church’s heavy-handedness over sex. “The church has never come to terms with sex,” he says.

The former bishop will not be drawn on how explicit his book will be. But he has another moral dilemma: he’s just been appointed chairman of the Scottish Arts Council, which has been a regular funder of the Edinburgh publisher Canongate Books. Holloway has already written several nonfiction books, mostly for Canongate, where he’ll also be sending Platform 11. Conflict of interest?

Trudie Styler is today better known as a film producer than as an actress. She was behind Lock, Stock